No Media Control?

[darkav]

This is quite disappointing. I know you can use YT Music, but I cannot listen to my podcast or webradio with YT. 

Having basic play/pause would be enough. 

[Triletics]

@darkav nope. There's only YTMusic. Pity, because despite I have YTPremium I normally use Spotify and generic music controls would work with anything. Probably Google's strategy to get more people to buy YTPremium.

[darkav]

Well, that's really a pity. Because otherwise it would be a great device. Also, this would be a VERY cheap and useful feature: not everyone listen to music over the internet. e.g. I download the podcasts daily (which are NOT available in YT music) and I listen them while running.

----

Well, google strategy won't work. There isn't EVERYTHING on YT. All the podcasts I listen are missing. All the web radio I listen are missing. And all this so people would move from Spotify to YT? The wouldn't (Assuming they use Spotify, I don't). 

[RiekoC · Accepted solution]

Hello @darkav 

There's a feature request in the Product Feedback forum to Add generic music controls to the Charge 6 (<-- click link) where you can vote for this feature and leave a comment. 

[N8teGee]

I really can't understand why it's limited only to YouTube Music. I'm sure it required more coding to get this to work than it would have for just a generic music control. 

[asiayeah]

@N8teGee You are right. But It's also obvious that Fitbit is now Google. It will only work with or promote Google owned music services.

[darkav]

Well, this is new for Google, they are starting behaving like Apple?

But in general it's OK not having the spotify app (so not be able to skip, track, select playlist, etc)...but a simple "play/pause" button is really the bare minimal.  

[asiayeah]

@darkav Well, Apple Watch supports Spotify, too. Who's more open?

Google wanna use Fitbit to promote its services and hence Google Wallet, Google Map and YouTube Music only are available. It believes if users cannot stand this, they will switch to Pixel Watch. Either way, Google believes it wins. However, in reality, many users actually switch to other competitors.

[N8teGee]

@asiayeah

I don't think allowing a generic music control is promoting other services. I mean it could even be used to control locally stored music files on the phone. A good example is the Pixel Watch 2 I'm wearing right now (another Google product). As soon as I start playing music on my phone a complication appears on the watch, tapping this brings up generic music controls. Let's not forget that Fitbit's of the past also did just this, although perhaps not quite as smoothly. 

[asiayeah]

@N8teGee Well, I never said allowing a generic music control is promoting other services. But what Fitbit doing is promoting Google services and it's very focus in doing so. Pixel Watch has more features in order to stay competitive with other Android wearables (in particular against Galaxy watches). However, fitbit is being positioned to promote Google services now. Like it or not.

[darkav]

Please vote this in the "product feedback" page then: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Product-Feedback/Generic-music-media-controls-for-Fitbit-devices/idi... 

[JEGL]

You can listen to Podcasts if your phone (and pocast app) support voice commands. On my iPhone if I say "Hey Siri....Overcast Play" it stops music and goes right into Overcast where it left off.  I assume there is something similar on Adroid if you have that kind of phone